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This study, examines the enforcement of the minimum wage in
Indonesia through criminal sanctions. The minimum wage is stipulated under the
Manpower Act 2003. Under the Act, employers are prohibited from paying wage
lower than the stipulated minimum wage. Employer who violates the minimum wage
will be subjected to criminal sanctions in prison and/or a fine. Since 2009,
there have been several district courts decisions imposing criminal sanctions
on employers who violate the minimum wage provision. One example was a 2008
court decision in the case of Sri Rejeki Mebelindo where in this case, the judges
sentenced the director to one and a half years imprisonment and a fine of 250
million rupiah for having paid wages lower than the stipulated minimum wage.
In addition, the study proposes that in enforcing the minimum wage through the
criminal sanctions, it is necessary to consider that the sanctions will not
be counter-productive to the company's business operations, especially when
the sanctions are imposed in the form of imprisonment not in the form of a fine.

Fundamentally, an employment relationship is an economic relationship. Nevertheless, due to the weaker position of worker than employers, thus, many parties note the importance of government intervention to protect workers in the form of regulation-making in order that the employment relationship can be fair. Therefore, this study specifically analyzes how the Indonesian labor law regulates the employment relationship to ensure that workers are protected from solely economic interests and at the same time workers can function well in the companys business operations. By using statute approach, the analysis conclude that the Indonesian labor law has set minimum and maximum requirements in the making of employment contract and substantive and procedural requirements in the dismissal exercise. For instance, the dismissal exercise must be accompanied by a fair reason. This principle is in line with the slogan labor is not a commodity that is embodied in the ILO Declaration of Philadelphia 1944 and the principle of just cause dismissal in the ILO Convention No. 158.